Help us bring our second album into the world.
“Music for people who want to feel optimistic but don’t” - Kai Carter
Hello crowd!
We’re Bristol-based alt-pop duo Kai & Hollis, and we’ve recorded our second album to be released in 2026. The album is a collection of vignettes co-written by us (Kai Carter and Hollis Robin), capturing the evolution of the introspective and darkly playful sound world that we create together. It’s a follow up to our debut album ‘colours’, which was our first exploration as a duo. Since then, we’ve continued pushing each other towards the boundaries of what’s acceptable in songwriting, wondering which naughty little thoughts can go into a song.
Each of the albums pithy, hooky songs feels like an audio painting, and collectively present an internal narrative of (totally normal) human thoughts that might not normally get spoken aloud - witty, contradictory, cynical, tender, confessional and unapologetic. Song themes include: not liking it when things touch us, waterproof clothes, making jokes that don’t land, and people who fill their pockets with bits of nature.
The Album & The Money
We recorded the album in three days in West Wales, and it’s been engineered, produced and mixed by Mike West. We really want people to hear this album beyond our immediate local scene. We’re opening pre-orders now with this campaign so we can pay for the expensive parts of releasing the album - namely, CD production, a PR campaign and a radio plugger. This will enable us to release the album with the momentum needed to establish ourselves as a name on the wider alt-pop circuit, to get some reviews, book some bigger festival gigs and get our singles heard on national radio.
The reality of life as a grassroots musician is it is brilliant and also very financially precarious. The we can get our music to new audiences, the more sustainable this becomes for us as a career.
The other portion of this funding is to create pretty things to go along with the release: fun, creative music videos, press shots of our pretty faces and album artwork. Whilst it is nice to have pretty things, this is also another vital part of helping our music to reach new people online.
Thanks for taking the time to have a read of this and donating and & pre-ordering!
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 13th June 2026 at 8:46am